Repression is everywhere . Repression is so common it is almost impossible to avoid . Repression can be found in natural laws ; gravity is a repressive force . I experience a desire for repression when I consider the possibility of extra-terrestrial life . Propaganda is a form of repression when it eliminates unwanted truth ; militaristic logistics require repression of the extraneous. Social hierarchy is only as good as it is expedient ; credibility is the key . Psychological repression can be a functional personal tool . Repression is a frictional force that can either eliminate unwanted forces or alter their courses .
Repression is most often thought of as a governmental tool . There are many reasons a government might want to repress it's subjects . In a truly free government no one can practice repression on others of no consent unless they have infringed on their rights . Fascist and socialist governments can force their people at will . Their children are trained both directly and subliminally in order that they may better fulfill their social positions . In free countries laws repress repressors : people who might want to tamper with your rights . Monopolies get repressed because they tamper with the people's right to a free market competition
system . The individual reigns and the majority decides what is best for everyone .
The elimination of all unwanted repressions is the natural goal of all individuals yet repression is common the world over . Social hierarchies necessitate repressions ; expedience in teamwork becomes more credible than individuality . Many sociological forces create their own realms of repression ; the normalcy demanded by tyrannical governments and puritanical religions are obvious examples .
Any retrospective examination of human history that is depthfully complete will probably bring to mind a vast quandary of opposing forces beyond social integration .
Personally I find people to have a vast amount of basic similarities . We become alienated from each other in the application of our abilities . In fact each and every one of us live in a realm that is totally real only to ourselves . I find this and similar states of social fragmentation to be one of the most pervasive observations one could make about the state of the human race .
The tabula rasa state of man is an evolutional being ; a conscious realm that became out of dirt , water , sunlight , time ; an essence that has an innate quality , a cosmic continuum . The historical development of world religions paints a vivid picture of man's desire to relate to this tactile awareness .
There are many forces in the universe that we as humans need to repress . Unwarranted or unwanted forces encounter natural resistance . Humans learn to control their conscious state as they acquire maturity . Natural repressions grow out of an understanding of the need for them . But humans are not satiated with pragmatic self orientation . They are easily misled by the perceived nature of their unconscious state . The perfection orientation of Adolf Hitler gives a stark example of an institutionalization of one of these warped images .
World religions also are often abortive of individual aspiration . Of course more often than not their impetus factors seem at least partially acceptable .
Practicality dictates that humans be self orientated in order to achieve their optimum state , but what is self orientation ? Humans exist in both a conscious and unconscious state . Individually we all perform many subconscious activities on an inadvertent level . Although many of them are autonomic defenses we can exercise control and attempt psychic clarity .
Actually repression is something that each and every individual must put down for themselves . Although social expedience creates an environment that is conducive to itself , individuals have an innate need to repress certain of their psychic phenomena whether they are created by their environment or well from within .

This is more a thesis than antithesis...although you have opposing views here.

I'm reading this as another assertion from you that it is the individual spirit that controls the shaping of humankind.
It is in how we use repression that defines it.
Control can be good, if we choose to control the negative and unproductive. Control can be abused too easily and put to negative and unproductive uses.

It's all down to the individual of the species to determine the fate of all.
And I will argue that it is not the organic matter of the brain firing off signals among synapses that determines the definition of the individual, but the spirit inhabiting the flesh. Spirit bound to the flesh, yet unbound to the limits the flesh imposes.

"In fact each and every one of us live in a realm that is totally real only to ourselves ." Gravity, space and time are all repressive (and sums up things physical). Perhaps that is why in our unconscious state(s) our desire to conquer these things are manifested in our fondest dreams. All are related to mass so as we lose the mass we can approach the "one with the universe" ideal. That is, however, usually a one way ticket at least in the permanent sense. Spirit is as spirit does (no mass).

repression stems from the individual and grows into a societal thing...and on the other hand, it starts on a societal level and works on down to the individual...it is everywhere in everything, in some form or another.

this is really a thoughtful write that rings with truth from the first word to the last.